The Wrecker and the Wrecked
by TheDandyCrickette
Summary: After the war for Earth, Jasper is given new responsibilities that she was not made for as Homeworld tries to recover. One of these responsibilities is the honor of her own Pearl, much to Jasper's chagrin. In the midst of these new burdens, Jasper struggles to move on from the war and her Pearl struggles to figure out where she stands with the gem she was made for.
1. Welcome to Homeworld

Homeworld still felt foreign and unreal to Jasper when she received a new summons from Yellow Diamond herself. Even in the midst of the chaos of reassigning and relocating all of the gem soldiers displaced from Earth's battlefield by Homeworld's tactical retreat, the planet was unbelievably polished with spires and arenas shining bright against the starline. Everything Earth could have been and yet nothing like that gem-forsaken planet. Even the gems seemed more polished and Jasper, a child of the war from a hasty and slipshod Kindergarten, barely knew how to behave.

It didn't help that everywhere she went, whispers and stares followed her. _That's her_ , she would hear as she moved through the crowds, _the Jasper from Beta. I've heard stories, can you imagine?_ That was her, the Jasper from Beta. Most of her original name had melted away as she gained notoriety during the war, but even now nobody forgot where she had come from. But instead of derision, their voices were now tinged with awe and they tagged a new nickname to the end: The Kindergarten Quartz that Could. It was laughable, in a sick way, but some of the worst perpetrators of the name were her superiors so she could do nothing but wear the distinction as a badge of honor.

After all, if no one would acknowledge how she had failed in the war for Earth, then neither could Jasper. Instead, she walked proudly into Yellow Diamond's audience chamber, her Captain's cape billowing behind her like a legacy – though now fitted with a yellow clasp rather than a pink one. With a salute and an address of "Yellow Diamond," Jasper knelt before her new diamond and waited to be acknowledged.

The gem matriarch sat at a large marble desk beneath a ceiling impressively vaulted to accommodate her height. Lighted screens surrounded her, illuminating the sharp lines of her face and the clean cut of her gem. At Yellow Diamond's side her Pearl, commonly known as Champagne by others because of the color of her gem, wrinkled her nose at screens of her own, sending Yellow Diamond's orders to those below with a clear look of gleeful contempt. Jasper wasn't surprised that this pearl had adapted so eagerly to the overflow of Yellow Diamond's responsibilities. In even their briefest interactions, Champagne made a point of keeping her hand in Yellow Diamond's business. It irked Jasper to no end.

"Ah, Jasper, thank you for your timeliness," Yellow Diamond addressed her after a moment, though she still sounded preoccupied. Jasper waited. She had been given no information about this summons, though she could only assume Yellow Diamond had new responsibilities for her. Perhaps one controlling yet another group of refugees as she was already doing in Facet 2. Most of the refugees were soldiers, though there were displaced technicians, aristocrats, and the like who needed to be sorted out and reassigned. Jasper, as a Captain, only gave the quartzes a sense of structure and kept peace among the nervous gems who had been granted asylum on Homeworld. Tedious work, but necessary in the wake of war. She was grateful the opportunity had been given to her.

"You may stand," Yellow Diamond insisted, beckoning Jasper to her feet and herself rising from her desk. "Pearl, see that the latest reassignments go out. And… Remind the supervisors that it is imperative that each assignment makes it to the correct type of gem. We don't have time for another mix-up."

"Yes, my Diamond," Champagne answered with a salute.

"Do you have a new assignment for me?" Jasper asked as Yellow Diamond descended from the dais her work station was settled on. Now that they stood closer, the lines of exhaustion and grief in Yellow Diamond's face were obvious, despite how her smart appearance tried to distract from it. A sour lump rose in Jasper's throat. Of course Yellow Diamond would be grieving, Homeworld's losses must have hit her the hardest – after all, she had lost more than a colony. But she continued to work for the good of gemkind and Jasper… Jasper suddenly felt sick remembering how she had failed to prevent Earth from being lost. How she had failed to prevent Pink Diamond from…

"Yes," Yellow Diamond interrupted Jasper's wandering thoughts, "I will shortly, but that is not why I called you here." Jasper responded with a curt nod. She let Yellow Diamond lead her down a long hallway and through a multiroom door that kept Yellow Diamond's capitol building easy to traverse using a modified warp pad technology. Being led around by Yellow Diamond herself was incredibly unusual and Jasper tried to brace herself for whatever important burden her new Diamond would ask her to shoulder next. She could not let down another diamond.

The room they emerged into was filled with large, elegantly formed metal boxes that lined the walls from floor to ceiling, each humming softly. Scalloped abalone lamps fixed between each row of boxes bathed the room in cool light. Jasper had never set foot here, but she knew immediately where she was.

The pearl Kindergarten.

Yellow Diamond took a box from one of the uppermost shelves and presented it to Jasper in the palm of her hand. "This one is for you," she said. "All we need now is your light."

Behind a pane of glass there sat a large copper pearl ringed around the middle and only just beginning to flicker with its own light. Jasper blanched, unable to form words. A Pearl was too much, far more than she deserved for clawing her way through countless rebels just to keep from being shattered. More than she deserved for doing what she was made to do, and failing even at that. It wasn't right.

Jasper took an unsteady step backwards but she found herself seeking Yellow Diamond's face. "Ye—" She stopped herself, corrected her address. "My Diamond, this is completely unnecessary. I'm just a quartz soldier. Not a… a…"

The lines in Yellow Diamond's face hardened, her nostrils flared. "A hero?" she guessed. "The gems of our world certainly think you are. And I myself am grateful for your service to my sister, our losses would have been even greater without you." She paused to fix Jasper with a stern look that made Jasper feel incredibly small, as if Yellow Diamond could see each instance of failure that ran through Jasper's mind just by looking at her. In a way, it only validated the shame she felt. "Like it or not, your story, each of your _sacrifices_ , belongs to the public now. Gems will look up to you as we rebuild. They need to see your strength. And they need to see you acknowledged. I make certain that the gems of my court receive what they deserve." As she said this, Yellow Diamond pushed the pearl box into Jasper's hands. It had an ominous weight to it and Jasper tightened her grip carefully, grinding her teeth.

"This is… for the good of Homeworld then?"

"Yes. For your own good as well. You will be taking on a lot of responsibility in the near future, and…pearls have their uses."

Jasper stared at the Pearl in her hands, dreading when she would take form. The last thing she needed right now was a toy ballerina following her around and getting in her way. But she was in no place to argue with Yellow Diamond's generosity. "I understand, thank you. What do you need me to do?"

Yellow Diamond looked satisfied and she pressed the side of the box so the pane of glass retracted. "The light from your gem," she instructed.

With a slow breath, Jasper focused her light into her gem until she could project a beam onto the unfinished pearl. The copper lustre shone under the light and the sides of the box grew warm, the insides glowing brighter by the second. The faint light within the gem grew more distinct as well, to Jasper's slight alarm. Finally, the glass panel snapped shut to trap the heat Jasper had poured into it so that her pearl would finish baking under her own light.

"Excellent." Yellow Diamond took the box from her and set it back in its place. "She will be ready soon enough, there will be a ceremony before the next lunar cycle."

"Thank you, my Diamond," Jasper intoned, feeling hollow. She glanced back at the box holding her pearl as they left the room and a sour taste filled her mouth.


	2. War Hero

The ceremony took place in a massive outdoor amphitheater carved out of shining yellow marble that sparkled under the sunlight. In attendance were the pinnacles of the gem aristocracy as well as each of the military leaders that Yellow Diamond had left. The place was overrun with Rubies working to keep the crowd under control and to keep unauthorized gems from sneaking backstage. A group of them quivered when she walked past them upon her arrival and they watched her with an awestruck fixation, totally distracted from their task.

"Stay focused!" Jasper snapped at them irritably.

The Rubies scrambled to return to their assignments with a flurry of flustered salutes. "Uhhhh, yes ma'am!" one of them squeaked, her cheeks coloring before Jasper turned her attention away. She felt the Ruby's eyes follow her even as she kept walking and she tossed her mane of white hair to shake off the feeling, ignoring the Rudy's small gasp when she did so.

Jasper smiled. Bit by bit, she was learning how to manage the constant attention and she found that she liked being able to control how other gems reacted to her presence. It reminded her of who she was and of why gems treated her like a legend. Despite her reservations about this ceremony, Jasper had dressed to kill – her eyes were sharply lined and she had polished the clasp on her cape to a brilliant shine. She felt invincible.

The whole affair was solemn enough, even in celebration they could not forget their grief. Yellow Diamond oversaw the presentation from a raised seat behind and to the side of center stage while a Carnelian general, one of the very few remaining, addressed the crowd with a reminder of Homeworld's many losses and sacrifices and an update of their world's recovery. Jasper stood respectfully at attention as the Carnelian spoke, her jaw clenched tight.

In the crowd some gems whispered to one another during the speech while others watched Jasper excitedly, ignoring the general. Jasper narrowed her eyes at the disrespect and fixed her attention on the ceremony. The gems who had sat here on Homeworld did not understand the gravity of what the general was telling them. Their lives had been safe for the entirety of the war, unlike Jasper and her sisters who emerged from the Earth's crust into a maelstrom of death and destruction. These Homeworld aristocrats could not understand and that knowledge fanned Jasper's irritation into true anger – anger at what she had experienced, anger at the shining future in Pink Diamond's court that had been stolen from her, and especially at the ignorance of the gems who could not even keep their eyes forward and their mouths shut long enough to honor the shattered.

"We will grow stronger and wiser as a society," the Carnelian said. "To do so, we must remember those who have helped us come so far, even in the midst of tragedy. Today, we honor a certain Mookaite Jasper made during the war who has risen so far above everything expected of her in her deeds and service to the Diamonds that she has become a living legend. I myself found the reports of her victories hard to believe, but each of them is true. Jasper, if you will?" She beckoned Jasper to the front of the stage.

When Jasper joined her a true hush finally fell over the audience.

"Jasper," the Carnelian addressed her as a Ruby officer came forward with a cushioned glass box. "Your deeds on and off the battlefield serve as a reminder of what all Quartzes should strive to be. In recognition of your leadership skills and at the behest of Yellow Diamond herself, the military of the Yellow Court is promoting you to the rank of Major." The Carnelian reached forward to remove the shining clasp of Jasper's cape and replaced it with a new one from the box the Ruby held. The new clasp gleamed even more brightly in the sunlight and bore the insignia of Major beside the insignia of the Yellow Court. Jasper took a deep breath and sincerely thanked the Carnelian with a salute. Applause erupted around them.

The Ruby left the stage carefully and the Carnelian General stepped back to allow Yellow Diamond and her Pearl to take to the front of the stage. Champagne had a Pearl box in her hands. Jasper sank to kneel before her and the crowed quieted again.

"Thank you Carnelian, that was very well-put," Yellow Diamond said before beckoning Jasper to her feet. "Jasper, you've proven yourself time and again to be an invaluable asset to Homeworld. I am not one to let prowess and courage such as yours go unacknowledged and so, in the absence of my sister, I want to take the privilege of bestowing upon you your very own Pearl." Champagne stepped forward with the open Pearl box, her chin held high, and Yellow Diamond went on. "This way, all gems will know of your exceptional service to the Diamonds."

Jasper looked up at Yellow Diamond to see her gesture toward the box. The Pearl inside glowed more brightly than it had weeks before, its surface gleamed with a magnificent luster. Jasper picked the Pearl up and inclined her head toward Yellow Diamond. "My Diamond, I am honored to receive this."

As if stirred by her touch, Jasper's Pearl grew warm and began to shine. Jasper let go of the gem and it floated into the air at level with Jasper's breast before taking form in a crimson one-piece with a sheer capelet draped over her shoulders. She offered Jasper a deep bow. When she lifted her head, her eyes were a dark red and her gem sat where her nose should have been, just like Jasper's. The Pearl's hair fell around her face in a voluminous bob the same color as Jasper's own mane and her skin was just a shade lighter than the orange of Jasper's.

Jasper watched as her Pearl's gaze slid to take in the crowded amphitheater, then to Champagne and back to Jasper before dropping her gaze to the ground. Seeing such a dainty gem possess the same color scheme as her made Jasper uneasy so she puffed up her chest and looked back to Yellow Diamond, thanked her.

"I hope I can demonstrate that I deserve these honors," she said to Yellow Diamond as well as the entire assembly. "I intend to do right by my fallen sisters, and by Homeworld."

* * *

Thunderous applause rang in Pearl's head even after the Yellow Pearl made a sharp gesture for her to follow Jasper off the stage. The hulking quartz led her to the back without another glance, not even looking at her when a starstruck Ruby shoved an elegant glass box into her hands and whispered that it belonged to Jasper. Pearl gave her a slight nod and gave a little tip-toed hop to catch up with her gem, feeling smaller by the second. She had just begun to wonder if she was doomed to be ignored when they entered an empty hallway and Jasper snorted bitterly.

"I don't know why Yellow Diamond gave me something as fragile as _you_ ," Jasper said, the disgust in her voice heartbreakingly obvious.

Pearl clutched the glass box tightly, feeling suddenly very brittle indeed. This was much worse than Jasper's silence. "I-I beg your pardon?"

Jasper stopped and turned to look down at her, her lip curled. "I mean, look at you," she scoffed, gesturing vaguely at Pearl, "Look at _me_!" The difference was alarmingly apparent, Jasper looked as if five Pearls could fit comfortably in her chest alone and her hands were easily bigger than Pearl's head. An uncomfortable shiver ran down her spine. She knew innately that she had been made to serve this gem, but by the stars there must have been some mistake. Jasper clearly did not want her.

Pearl struggled to hide her mounting panic but her hands began to tremble nonetheless. Jasper saw. The Quartz's posture became even more rigid and her jaw tightened, but her gaze flickered toward the sound of other gems entering the hallway behind them.

"Forget it," Jasper huffed and turned her back on Pearl again. "I need to be briefed before we can leave."

The briefing took place in a private rehearsal room, away from prying eyes. Pearl stood near the door and watched as Jasper spoke with three other Quartz officers. Pearl tried to glean as much information about her new position and the war that Jasper had been involved in as she could without drawing attention to herself.

"We've almost finished indexing everyone who came back in the retreat," Jasper reported in frustration, "And there are still _so_ many gems completely unaccounted for."

"The generals think we've reached a good point to start investigating our missing gems more thoroughly," another Quartz responded. The mechanics of that investigation took a long time for them to sort through but Pearl drank in every word that was said in her presence.

By the end of the briefing, she had a thousand questions that she was in no place to voice but at least she had a sense of the world she had been brought into; she would not be completely ignorant as everyone around her talked about the war as something deeply personal. She vowed to make it personal to her as well, and to learn everything she could about the history that proceeded her creation. She knew she was just a servant – and so far the prospect of serving Jasper was terrifying – but that was no reason for her to be clueless.


	3. Diversions

"Hey, living legend!" a voice called out as those being briefed filed out of the rehearsal room. Pearl made certain to duck out of sight of Jasper's scowl as she turned to find the voice's owner. A hulking Green Tourmaline separated from a huddle of soldiers and threw an arm around Jasper to thump her on the back. Surprise of surprises, Jasper cracked a smile and jabbed the Tourmaline in the ribs good humoredly. It was the first time Pearl had seen her smile.

"GT," Jasper said by way of greeting. "How's Facet 3?"

"It's a mess," the Tourmaline laughed and ruffled Jasper's hair. "But look at you! You got a public promotion. You got a _Pearl_!" At that, Pearl went rigid, grinding her teeth in her nervousness.

But even with GT gesturing at her Pearl, Jasper didn't give her any sort of acknowledgement. She just ducked under GT's arm with a crooked grin and locked her arms around GT's chest. "Don't think it's because I'm getting tired, got it?" Jasper growled.

" _Why are you fighting?"_ Pearl asked, under her breath. She had no way to tell if the Green Tourmaline was a threat or an affront to Jasper but no one seemed to be stepping between them. Her nerves made her hands shake as she took another step back. If anyone heard her, no one acknowledged it.

GT cackled and shoved Jasper backwards with an elbow to her ribs. "You still got the mettle to back that up, Kinderquartz?"

Wheezing and laughing, Jasper twisted GT's arm away from her and threw the other gem over her hip. She kept her bent backwards balanced only on her toes and leaned in close to say "More than ever."

Pearl clasped a hand over her mouth as other gems crowded close and egged GT and Jasper on. _"Why is she laughing?"_ Pearl hissed desperately, biting her own palm in an effort to keep calm and clutching the glass box holding Jasper's pin to her chest..

"Hey, hey!" someone shouted over the ruckus with such a sharp tone that half of the gems, including Jasper and GT, immediately snapped their heads around to find the speaker. A Carnelian that Pearl recognized from the stage stepped forward through the parting crowd. Jasper and GT quickly scrambled to attention, each offering a diamond salute. "If you gems want to get rough, take it back to the stage. The architecture in here is _historic_."

"Of course General," Jasper said quickly, "My apologies."

The Carnelian gave a curt nod and kept walking, waving the crowd away. "Good, don't make trouble for me here soldier."

When the Carnelian was out of sight, Jasper and GT relaxed and grinned at each other before Jasper shoved the other and led the march back to the stage. Once again, Pearl was utterly confused and utterly forgotten even as she trailed after Jasper like some lost little thing.

The amphitheater was long empty when Jasper and GT took the stage. The pair had spent the march to the stage snickering and shoving one another in what Pearl was beginning to suspect was a good-natured manner. She hung back in the wings where she could keep Jasper in her sight without being tripped over. The small crowd of gems that had followed Jasper back up the stairs formed a wide circle to give Jasper and GT the space they needed. The two of them had already locked hands and were both trying to topple the other. Pearl could not hear what they said to one another but watching them was unlike anything she could have imagined on her own.

Both gems moved with surprising grace considering their heft – every step was beautifully precise and deliberate. Even while pitting their strength against one another they both moved with ease. Jasper especially looked far more comfortable now than at any given moment in the last few hours.

Jasper knocked GT to the ground three separate times before someone else jumped forward and insisted on a turn, and each time happened so suddenly that Pearl couldn't even see how it had happened. She was so mesmerized but the goings-on that she nearly did not notice the other Pearl, grey in color and dress with her gem on the palm of her left hand, sidle up to her quietly.

For a moment she wondered if this Pearl was simply watching as well but she could feel the Pearl's sidelong gaze insisting on her attention. "Uhm… can I help you?" Pearl asked.

"You're the Jasper's?"

"Y-yes?"

" _That_ Jasper?" the Grey Pearl asked with a nod toward the stage just as a roar went up from the small crowd. They both cringed when Jasper slammed yet another gem into the ground with a laugh. Pearl gulped and nodded. "Wow… Well, I belong to the Magnetite who heads energy production in Facet 1; we were here for the ceremony," she announced to draw Pearl's attention away from the fight. She was clearly smug about her position. "I thought I'd come introduce myself while she's busy, since you're new."

"Oh. Thank you." Unsure of what else to say, Pearl gazed out at the stage instead. "…They're fighting right? So why do they all look so pleased?"

The Grey Pearl shrugged. "They're soldiers, you know how soldiers are."

"No, actually," Pearl admitted, "I don't know anything."

"Oh, _right_. I forget what it's like to be new. You must be, what, a couple of days…?"

"A few hours," Pearl laughed softly. "I'm still _very_ lost."

"A few _hours_?" the Grey Pearl exclaimed, "That wasn't the first time you formed, was it?" She seemed unexpectedly alarmed at that and when Pearl assured her that she had indeed formed for the first time during the ceremony, she dragged a hand down her face and groaned. "I was _positive_ that whole bit was staged, these things are all about the dramatism. Ugh, Jey's going to run me through the gauntlet."

"Jey?" For the first time since forming, a gem other than Jasper had Pearl's full attention. Perhaps there was some clue here about what existence had in store for her. "Is that your gem?"

"My gem? Oh my stars, _no_ ," the Grey Pearl laughed. "She's another Pearl, I'm certain you'll meet her sooner or later, she's quite the socialite. But we had a… friendly wager. And I _lost_!" Her face twisted at the thought and Pearl wondered if it really was such a friendly wager if the Grey Pearl was so upset about losing. Of course, Pearl had never lost anything, so she was unfamiliar with the feeling.

"Er, I'm sorry about that," she tried.

"What? No, no, it's not your fault. I was just so _sure_ ," the Grey Pearl assured her, clenching her fists. "But don't you worry about that! And- and don't think I only came over here to settle a bet."

"… _Did_ you?" Pearl asked, a little hurt. "You said you wanted to introduce yourself."

"I did want to introduce myself! And I wanted to see if you're doing alright. …Are you?"

Pearl considered her sister gem with pursed lips, not wanting to lie but too embarrassed to admit that Jasper did not want her. Onstage there was now a constant chanting cheer surrounding the string of fights and Jasper was laughing as other soldiers doubled up against her. Pearl gritted her teeth. "I… just don't know how I'm supposed to serve someone who's only happy when she's knocking other gems to the ground," Pearl admitted with a wistful look toward Jasper. "How do _I_ make her happy?"

For a moment she was met only with silence before the Grey Pearl put a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, no Pearl, no no no… You listen to me," she crooned, turning Pearl to face her. "You're not here to make your gem _happy_."

"W-what?" Pearl blanched, recoiling instinctively. "But…"

The Grey Pearl quieted her with a stern look. "You were made to _serve_ her and to make her life _easier_. That's it. Pearls don't make gems happy, we just make them conceited. And who can blame them? I mean, _look_ at us," she giggled with a small toss of her head.

Pearl forced a small laugh but she was more concerned than before. Surely the difference between serving someone, being _made_ for them, and making them happy wasn't so huge that the two could be separated so easily. "Do our gems know that?"

The way the Grey Pearl hesitated before offering her a noncommittal shrug told her no.

Fumbling a bit, the Grey Pearl said "How about I give you some advice? To get you started." She waited for Pearl to nod before going on. "Things will transition more smoothly if you can figure out what needs done without her being particularly aware of you. Learn how to get around without her noticing you, don't disturb her space too much if you can help it. But don't let her wonder where you are either. After you master that, everything is simple."

"That seems contradictory doesn't it?"

"Oh, I promise it isn't. You'll get the hang of it," the Grey Pearl assured her with a nervous smile.

Pearl mulled it over, grateful at least to have some sort of guidance – which was more than she had before. The other Pearl left her with a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder after insisting that she had to go before her Magnetite noticed her absence. "I'll probably see you again," she assured Pearl, "Good luck!"

And then Pearl was alone again but she felt calmer, more focused. By the time Jasper and the other soldiers had worn themselves out roughhousing, Pearl was composed and ready to try to be of use. It seemed like hours before Jasper was ready to break herself away from the clutch of soldiers, but when she finally did she was in much brighter spirits. Of course, she still did not acknowledge Pearl, even as they stepped onto a warp pad and were whisked away.

They arrived before a shining spire surrounded by yellow sand and lower structures for miles that radiated moonlight. Pearl followed Jasper inside, past elegant architecture and a few clutches of gems to a door inlaid with a dozen small glass spheres. One of them reacted to the glow of Jasper's gem as they approached and the door opened into a small wing that must have belonged to Jasper. Pearl stayed close to her gem as the door closed behind them.

The circular front room was bathed in red and yellow light and acted as a foyer for three other rooms. Through the doorway Pearl could see that the room to her right displayed a number of weapons and pieces of armor in varying colors and styles while the room to her left seemed centered around a plush couch draped with sheer orange fabric. All she could make out from the last room, straight ahead, was a stiff yellow glow.

Jasper took a few steps toward this final room before stopping and taking a deep breath. Her thumb massaged the knuckle of her index finger thoughtfully. "Pearl…"

"Y-yes, Jasper?" Pearl squeaked.

"What's your designation?"

"M-my…?"

Jasper turned around to give her a sharp look. "Your serial number. You do know it, don't you?"

Pearl stammered, trying to think. No one had told her about a designation of any sort beyond belonging to Jasper. But after a moment something clicked and she knew. "I-I… I'm Pearl 1F30 Cut-2PB," she sputtered at last.

Jasper studied her for a moment with pursed lips and Pearl felt smaller by the second. "PB, then," Jasper finally announced.

"Pardon?"

"PB," Jasper drawled, sounding irritated. "From your designation. I need a way to differentiate you from other Pearls. I deal with a lot of different gems."

"Oh," Pearl paled, feeling embarrassed. "Yes, of course."

"Good," Jasper said and unclasped her cape to hand it over stiffly. "I suppose you know what to do."

Pearl swallowed hard and nodded as she took the cape from Jasper and draped it over the glass box she was still carrying. "Of course," she lied, holding Jasper's gaze and inclining her head the slightest bit in subservience.

Jasper huffed and turned away to enter the far room. "Good, one less thing for me to worry about," she muttered dismissively, leaving a bewildered Pearl behind to discover her duties on her own.


	4. Examination In Perpetuum

Having a pearl at her beck and call only served to put more eyes on Jasper whenever she went out, regardless of whether she actually had PB doing anything. One of those pairs of eyes, of course, was PB's own. She was always staring and Jasper could feel her trying to take cues from Jasper's body language. To an outsider it must have looked like an admirable bit of attentiveness to her gem, but PB was so stiff that unless Jasper gave her an express assignment she was in the way.

The only reason she didn't leave her pearl at home was that, even working from memory alone, PB had an uncanny mind for detail. As Jasper began the tedious process of interviewing refugees to figure out what had happened to their missing gems, she found that PB took exceptionally thorough notes when armed with a screen. With detailed records of all of her interviews at her disposal, Jasper's search for Homeworld's countless missing gems was actually feasible.

She was put under the supervision of a stern Plume Agate who largely oversaw the direction of her work. A few weeks into her investigations, Plume Agate took her to meet with a starstruck Imperial Topaz.

"I'd be happy to go over my records with you, of course," the Topaz was saying, "But you have to understand… Gem shard identification is hardly a precise science. We've requisitioned a number of Kindergarteners to help ID the remains that we have but it's still looking quite bleak."

Jasper kneaded her brow with a low growl. "Fine. Show me what you _do_ have, we can cross-reference it with my own research. That should turn up something."

Before Imperial Topaz led Jasper away to the shard cache where her physical reports were, Plume Agate pulled Jasper aside for a quick word. "Be on your best behavior in there," she warned, "I'll hear about it if you do anything… out of turn."

"I'm treating this assignment very seriously," Jasper assured her and followed Imperial Topaz down an enclosed walkway that sloped into the ground. PB followed, uninvited but unimpeded.

They stopped before the great door to the vault as the Topaz's hand hovered over the touchpad. "I should warn you, it's not pretty in here. I-it's too much for most gems." Her gaze wavered over Jasper and PB.

"I'm not most gems," Jasper growled. "Open it, we have work to do." The idea that a battle hardened quartz such as herself would be squeamish in the presence of shattered gems was, simply put, an insult.

The shard cache was comprised of a single circular room. Shining workstations surrounded beams of soft, green light that held groups of gem shards in stasis. On the walls were large interstellar murals depicting gem life and death in a myriad of colors and precious stones. Other Topazes and a few Kindergarteners huddled around the workstations, deep in their own investigations, and their hushed voices filled the vault with eerie whispers. It was a somber and chilling sight.

"Here we do our best to identify the shards found on the battlefield before returning them to the ground," Topaz explained, all business as she led them to the central workspace where a huge mass of gem shards lay suspended in light. PB peeked out at the room from Jasper's elbow, face pale and eyes wide. "Our list of confirmed identities is, lamentably, short."

Topaz pulled the list up from the central archive and stepped aside to allow Jasper to look. It comprised of less than a dozen names.

"Seriously?" Jasper scoffed, "This is it?"

Topaz only nodded.

Jasper clenched her jaw. "Fine, show me what else you have. Pearl!"

At her back, PB snapped out of the daze she had fallen into at the sight of the hundreds of gem shards before her and for a moment she only stared at Jasper in bewilderment. When she did take the hint and moved forward to transfer the information on the screen to her tablet, Jasper put a hand on her narrow back and hissed "Don't embarrass me here." She waited just long enough for her Pearl to respond with a soft sound of acknowledgement before turning to allow Topaz to lead her around.

The gem shards were indexed by where they were retrieved and then by type. They spent a fair amount of time cross referencing Topaz's index with Jasper's accounts of the last known locales of missing gems. Pearl quietly directed Jasper's attention to the relevant entries and Jasper, in turn, ignored the smug energy coming off of her.

Even after commandeering the expertise of the kindergarteners, they were there for hours with little progress. Eventually, she had to step away just so she didn't have to keep looking at the sheer futility of it all. The more time she spent on this dead-end assignment, the clearer it became that more likely than not Homeworld would never recover even a fraction of their lost and shattered.

PB appeared at her side with her tablet clutched against her chest like a shield. "Is there anything I can get you?" she asked, barely audible.

Jasper's jaw tightened and she bared her teeth in irritation. "Yeah, how about some space?" she growled.

The Pearl stiffened as if Jasper had turned her to ice. Behind them, Topaz and her associates politely ignored the uncomfortable tension building around Jasper and spoke quietly among themselves. PB backed away from Jasper to stand adrift on her own and silently fixed her eyes on the portable screen, presumably to busy herself organizing and cross-referencing the new data.

The hum of the light fields dulled the other sounds in the room, a constant numbing buzz that sent chills through Jasper's form if she got too close. With a deep sigh, she leaned heavily against a console.

There was a loud creak as the entire workstation shifted suddenly under Jasper's weight and the field of light flickered precariously.

"No, be _careful_!" Topaz shouted and came running from across the vault as Jasper jumped away from the console.

It was too late. The workstation fell back into place with a crash and with its base interfered with, the light field failed and a hundred gem shards crashed to the floor.

"Oh, stars, grab them!" Topaz yelled and dropped to her knees to scoop up an armful of gem shards that had already begun to shiver toward any sort of cover. The vault erupted into chaos. The other gems dove to the floor to catch the shards that had fallen nearest to them, Jasper scooped up an entire handful and slammed her foot down in front of a crevice in the machinery to keep others from scurrying underneath.

"Fill the other light holds," Topaz was saying, "Be quick, we need to catch all of them!" Jasper followed her direction and shoved her handful of gem shards into one of the still functioning light holds and prepared to go after another cluster of the things. In the midst of the chaos, PB stood still as a statue until Topaz grabbed her by the front of her capelet and shoved her toward a couple of shards that had wandered away from the main group, screaming as she did so for the Pearl to make herself useful.

Jasper had little time to feel anger at the scene as PB stumbled after the stray gem shards and struggled to keep them clasped in her hands. The commotion slowly died down, but not before the cache door opened and Plume Agate entered. She immediately balked at the chaos in the room but Imperial Topaz quickly shouted over her to shut the doors and directed her to drop to her knees and help.

they were all panting and groping around under the machinery for gem shards. "Is that all of them, did you check everywhere?" Topaz kept asking, her voice quickly grating against Jasper's nerves. She was about to snap at the other gem when there was a flash of light and a crunching noise.

Everyone in the room froze as the console Jasper had disrupted shuddered. An arm of coiled wire shot out from the machine and shoved Jasper against the wall with a sickening crash. Instinctively, she brought both fists down hard on the arm with such force that the wire and metal splintered and she fell to the ground. The other gems in the room were panicking and shrieked as the shard-possessed console pushed itself up off the ground, its panels cracking and glowing like eyes.

Jasper grabbed and twisted the mechanical arm to keep the beast from taking a swing at the room full of technicians. "Everyone who's never fought before get out!" she hollered. All but a few technicians ran for the door. The rest turned to Plume Agate and Topaz for direction. Jasper's attention was taken momentarily by PB shakily backing herself into a corner. With a flick of its arm, the console beast sent her sprawling across the room with a grunt. Around her, blasters were drawn and aimed at the beast.

It gave Jasper time to scramble toward PB. Her Pearl was frozen, paralyzed in the face of a danger she'd never seen before. Jasper grabbed her and shoved her toward the door. "Get out of here," she hissed, "Go home."

"B-but—"

"Now!" She dragged PB to the door and shoved her out into the hallway herself. "Before you get in the way."

The door shut behind her and Jasper was more than happy to assume that PB had obeyed. At the moment, there was no time for anything but assumptions. Plume Agate was having the kindergarteners fan out with their blasters to keep the console beast from moving around the room and causing more damage. She glanced at Jasper still near the door and snarled "Get back in there! Make yourself useful, Beta!"

Jasper set her jaw and rushed at the beast. Plume Agate pulled a whip from the gem on her chest and cracked it at the beast, catching the wiry arm of the living console and pulling the beast off-balance. Jasper summoned her helmet with a flash of light and dove under the legs of the console. She punched through the metal plating and peered inside as the thing tried to throw her off again. The glow of the lights inside made it hard to pick out the gem shards' own light and she had to squint to make them out even with her eyes covered by a visor.

There were four shards controlling the lifeless metal and wire in tandem like some freakish fusion.

Jasper plunged her hand through the hole she had made to grab at the shards. The entire console shuddered when she ripped them out. Metal creaked and bolts fell from the beast. The entire construction collapsed to the ground before Jasper could roll free and she hit the ground beneath a mountain of rubble with a loud grunt. The other gems jumped back to avoid the crash.

A moment of stillness followed as they all waited to be sure it was over. Jasper lifted herself off the ground and shrugged off the broken machinery. The stone tile was cracked and dented where she had landed. The look on Plume Agate and Imperial Topaz's faces were drawn with barely concealed rage. Imperial Topaz came forward with an upturned palm to receive the gem shards. Her hand folded into a tight fist as soon as Jasper dropped them into her palm.

"As if we needed another mess to clean up," the Topaz griped to Plume Agate, a disgusted look on her face. "I guess all Betas _are_ the same." Jasper sneered at the comment, but the Agate's sharp look silenced any retort before she could think of one. Instead, she picked herself up and dusted off debris. The cache was a mess, but she wasn't hurt. No one was.

It was clearer than before that Jasper – a Beta quartz of all things – didn't belong there sifting through the remains of Homeworld's army. She moved to start clearing the debris. "Let me help, uh…"

"No!" Imperial Topaz cut her off, spinning back around with her fist still clenched tight around the gem shards. To Jasper's surprise, she shook a finger at Plume Agate. "I've had enough 'help' from Yellow Diamond's pity case. If she's sent here again, _your_ gem is the one I'm coming for, Agate. This is a sacred place, get her out of here."

Amid a flurry of simpering apologies, Plume Agate ushered Jasper out of the room, leaving others to clean up the mess. She did not even stop to banish her whip and kept it wound tightly in her hand. Jasper tensed for a dressing down but as soon as the door to the shard cache shut behind them Plume Agate turned toward Jasper and slapped her across the face with the coiled whip hard enough to make her stagger.

"You _worthless_ , cobbled-together chunk of _sand_ ," Plume Agate hissed, punctuating each insult with another blow.

Jasper braced herself and crossed her arms over her chest in a salute. "It was an accident," she grimaced.

"Oh, you Earth gems are full of excuses." Plume Agate grabbed the front of Jasper's uniform and shoved her back several paces. "You're an embarrassment to Pink Diamond's legacy! Those gems gave their lives on Earth. They're the only reason you're standing here."

"I'm _sorry_ , Plume Agate," Jasper insisted, arms still crossed. The side of her face stung so bad it made her eyes water.

Her Agate scoffed. "Not yet, Beta. But you will be," she said, her eyes dark with fury. She wrenched Jasper's arm and forced her down the corridor. "Walk. You're in for a dizzying debriefing."


	5. Breathe In But You Choke

When Jasper told her to go home, PB obeyed despite her many reservations. She felt horribly out of line when she went into public without her gem. In a paltry effort to avoid the gaze and sharp questions of the gems above her, PB kept her head down as she scurried to and from the warp pad.

The door closed behind her and she was safe from prying eyes. PB's knees trembled and she fell back against the metal door, holding her screen to her chest. Every fiber of her light fizzled with fear at what she had just seen. Hundreds of gem shards passing under the scrutiny of the living, mindless, still full of power and energy but ultimately removed from their former life as gems. Since her formation, she and Jasper had been investigating shattered gems but until PB saw the mindless gem shards being kept in Imperial Topaz's Cache, brokenness and shattering were little more than abstract concepts.

PB could glimpse Jasper's collection of war trophies from where she stood. The collection comprised of half a dozen massive weapons and pieces of bent and cracked armor. All were polished to a gleaming shine but there were marks that even the most dedicated buffing could not disguise. Pearl's chest felt tight as she looked at them and remembered Jasper's muscles straining against a monster of machinery brought to life by the remains of her fellow gems. Until that moment, she could never understand why her Jasper, a veritable bastion of brute strength, needed either weapons or armor. Suddenly, it was all too clear and PB felt very fragile indeed.

There were a dozen tasks to occupy herself with until Jasper's return – the most pressing of which being the screens and screens of notes from the Cache that needed to be organized and cross-referenced with Jasper's previous research. Paralyzed with terror and worry in the face of her new understanding of gem finitude, Pearl could not make herself start a single chore. Instead she sank to the floor, breathless as Jasper's absence grew and grew.

* * *

Time seemed to have stopped when the door finally opened. PB jumped to her feet and stood ready to greet her gem, blinking the daze out of her eyes.

Jasper lumbered in without looking at Pearl, rubbing a spot on her shoulder. Her eyes were unfocused, like she was looking inward rather than out. PB wondered if she was really seeing at all.

"My Jasper," PB piped up, unable to hide her eagerness to welcome her gem home. "I-I was starting to—"

Before she could finish her sputtering Jasper placed a large hand over PB's face that covered her mouth, gem, and crown. "Quiet," Jasper told her wearily. Her hand fell away like muck sluiced away by water and she wandered through the door to her trophy room without further acknowledgement.

PB followed in silence to peer through the doorway just in time to see Jasper scream wordlessly and throw a punch at the wall with such staggering force that the sound it made rattled Pearl's ribcage. Then, to her surprise, Jasper slumped against the wall between pieces of armor and threw her head back with a heavy sigh. Her thick, white hair cascaded down her back nearly to the floor and hung in a way that made Jasper look more bedraggled than PB had ever seen her. A few long minutes passed before the quartz giant stirred again. She hesitated before her display of weapons with her hand hovering between a heavy war axe and a cutlass.

Eventually, she picked up the axe – a monstrous thing nearly matching her in height with a nasty spike on the end to balance the weight of the head. Jasper tested its heft in her grip, tossing the war axe from hand to hand as if reacquainting herself with its power. PB shrank into the doorway as she watched. There was unmistakable power magnified in Jasper's grip that both terrified and intrigued her Pearl. PB watched her, wide-eyed and mouth clamped shut, until Jasper ultimately put the axe away and picked up the cutlass instead. Wordlessly, she opened a drawer in the wall and picked up a cloth, oil, and a whetstone before sitting down on the floor in the far corner of the room.

When Jasper examined the chipped blade and began to sharpen it with long, slow strokes of the whetstone PB felt the urge to cross the room and take such a menial task from her. Surely weapon upkeep was Pearl work. But seeing the distant look in Jasper's eye quashed that urge and made PB certain that suggesting such a thing would only irritate her gem in that moment. Still, itching to assist in some way, PB held her breath and watched closely.

Light glinted off the cutlass blade and made Jasper squint. Carefully, PB dimmed the lights to a more comfortable level and quietly slunk away to do work elsewhere while Jasper filled their quarters with the slow, monotonous scrape of the whetstone.

* * *

Plume Agate's voice followed Jasper home, along with the chorus of whispers that had filled her ears since coming to Homeworld. Worthless. Degenerate. Good-for-nothing.

 _Beta_.

Her body ached after the debriefing, like she'd lost another war. Punching the wall had only made it worse. The scrape of metal in her hands helped block out Agate's voice in her head but the moments of silence between strokes was more than enough time for the whole ordeal to replay itself.

Irreverent. Disrespectful. _Hideous_. Should have been left to crumble with the rest of that cursed planet. She didn't deserve half the chance she'd been given.

The scrape of metal brought her back for a few blessed moments. Already, the day's events felt like a blur. She could hardly remember which of her aches were from words and which were from blows. The longer she sat there with her blade and a whetstone, the more of a blur it became and the more personal failings crept up from her memories of Earth. In the half-light, the shadows around her stretched menacingly to taunt her.

Jasper set the whetstone aside and wet her cloth with oil. Shadows were only shadows, and memories only memories. It was over. All over. Still, she watched the shadows dancing in her peripheral as she polished the blade in her hands. A well-practiced tension sat between her shoulders.

* * *

It took PB mere hours to catalog their new research. Her cataloging system was becoming quite elegant and she was more than a little pleased with herself over it. Jasper rarely expressed approval, especially over menial tasks, but PB knew she would at least be satisfied with how accessibly PB organized their notes after the mess that was obtaining them. She had even marked important new connections that Jasper might need to investigate further.

Looking over her work, PB was nearly giddy with accomplishment. She could hardly wait to show Jasper.

It wasn't until that thought that PB realized she had not heard anything from Jasper in quite some time. The scrape of the whetstone had long since ceased and had been followed by hours of uncharacteristic silence. Brow creased with concern, Pearl rose to find her gem.

Every light in Jasper's quarters was dimmed to accommodate Jasper's sensitive eyes. PB found her sitting motionless in the half-light of the trophy room, cutlass and polishing cloth in hand. Her amber eyes glinted with light and were fixed on the floor in front of her.

"M-my Jasper?" PB breathed, so nervous that barely a sound left her throat. Jasper didn't move an inch, made no acknowledgement of Pearl.

Lip trembling, PB forced herself quietly forward despite having no idea what she would do to snap Jasper out of her trance. Even when PB stood right beside her, the quartz seemed not to notice her. Taking a deep breath, PB chanced a light hand on Jasper's shoulder. "Jaspe—"

Faster than her name could leave PB's mouth, Jasper grabbed PB's arm in a crushing grip and drove the cutlass through her chest with a yell. The pain seared through her, making her choke. She scrabbled at her chest helplessly and her fingers brushed against the warm blade. Tears filled her eyes even as she felt her form begin to dissipate.

More shocking than the pain was how quickly Jasper's expression changed from a furious grimace to wide-eyed horror. Pearl could just make out her name forming on Jasper's lips before her vision truly blurred.

"I'm sorry!" she whimpered with her last ounce of strength.

All at once she couldn't feel, couldn't see or hear. All was a blur of orange and red until the last sparkle of her light retreated back into her gem with her.


	6. Silence In Between

PB's shining gem fell from where she stood only moments before and seemed to fall so slowly that Jasper nearly didn't react in time. She caught the gem just before it hit the ground and wrapped her fingers tight around it.

She stared at her closed fist with a creeping dread. She'd attacked a Pearl, her own Pearl of all things.

"Oh, sands…" Jasper groaned. The cutlass slipped from her fingers and landed beside her with a clatter. "Pearl? Pearl, I didn't mean it!"

Her head was clearer, too late free of the shadows that made her forget where she was. This wasn't some haphazard trench dug out to hide from Crystal Gem guerillas. She wasn't fighting a war anymore, not outwardly anyway. Still, she could hardly understand how this had happened.

"Pearl, I'm not angry," she pleaded, well aware that PB couldn't hear her from inside her gem. Mercifully, no one else was around to see yet another one of her failings. It wasn't of any comfort, but at least the consequences wouldn't reach beyond that room. Jasper's thoughts raced as she prepared herself for PB to reemerge.

The only gems she had hurt badly enough to force them back into their gems were, until that point, Crystal Gem renegades who would have shattered her given the chance and her fellow soldiers when blowing off steam became particularly aggressive. In the case of her fellow soldiers, they could laugh off the dissipation once they reformed. Quartzes were made to take a beating, after all.

She couldn't laugh this off with Pearl. PB was not her equal. Not someone she could joke with or push around in good fun. And PB was not created with combat in mind.

Jasper felt sick. She grew sicker still as the minutes stretched and PB showed no sign of reforming.

"Come on," Jasper finally growled at PB's gem. The delay only made her more anxious. "Get back out here so I can apologize already!"

Nothing.

Grousing, Jasper inspected the gem for damage and when she found it in good condition picked herself up off the ground to find somewhere to set PB's gem. In the other room she found where PB left a screen full of work. Jasper glanced through the work her Pearl had done briefly before a sour taste in her mouth made her stop. The work was thorough, to say the least, but looking at it only pissed her off more.

Instead she set PB's gem down beside the screen. And she waited.

Half an hour later she was pacing furiously, going through a barrage of things to say once PB reformed. If she ever bothered to. It couldn't possibly take so long to put herself back together. PB already had a form to take.

When Jasper couldn't stand the wait any longer, when she was ready to start punching holes in the walls from sheer frustration, she stormed out into the rest of the barracks.

Thankfully, the warp pads took her directly into the foyer of Sector 12's arena. No need to brush elbows with more than a couple civilian gems.

She marched directly to one of the smaller stages where a handful of gems were gathered. After a quick scan of the crowd she pointed out two Prase quartzes and made certain they noticed.

"You. And you," Jasper snapped. "Fight me. Now."

The two Prases, clearly from the same batch, exchanged a look and a shrug before stepping forward. "Jasper, right?" one of them asked. She had a circular gem, located on the left side of her chest, and a cloud of tight curls pulled back behind her head. "I'm 4XA, this is 4XE," she went on, indicating the Prase beside her – a more dour looking quartz with her gem on the back of her right hand.

Jasper nodded and saluted both of them. There weren't enough of her to have to specify which Jasper she was.

The stage was a pit thirty feet across with steep, sloping sides and lit from overhead. An uninterested adjudicator monitored their stage, though they hardly needed supervision to spar.

Prase and Prase split up immediately to flank Jasper and tried to trip her up, putting her on the defensive right away. She hated it. Jasper scowled and deflected the first of their blows until she found her opening. She grabbed Prase XE by the front and the arm and swung her into XA. Both gems toppled across the stage but managed to catch themselves before sprawling on the floor.

The rhythm of the fight picked up after that. Jasper traded blow for blow with the Prases and used their own bulk against each other. A small crowd gathered on the ledge to watch and their cheers blurred into the background of Jasper's thoughts. The fight was electric, it reminded her of where she belonged: In the fray.

The clamor and the violence felt more real and familiar than anything else she did on Homeworld. In the half-spark decisions and the rush of fighting, Jasper knew who she was.

XA and XE went down with enough of a fight to give Jasper a warmup. She eyed the spectators as the Prases helped each other out of the pit and threw up her hands in a challenge.

"Who's next?" she demanded.

* * *

Formlessness was such a shock. It reverberated through the nothing that Pearl found herself in with such echoing force that at first she hadn't even realized what had happened. She was nowhere, basking in her own soft light and trying to make sense of her own jumbled thoughts. There was no space to reach into and nothing to reach with. Pearl felt like she existed in forever in her gem. There was no way to know how much time she had spent floating in the nothing already, all moments may as well have been one.

Jasper put her there. Pearl hadn't the slightest clue why, but she had. Even without a body, the searing pain from Jasper's cutlass cut through the core of her being like a living, unending memory.

Was this a punishment? If it was, it was the most confusing punishment yet by a long shot. And if Jasper was so terribly mad, Pearl didn't want to face her.

But if she waited too long to reform, Jasper might only become more aggravated. Not only that, it would make her a bad Pearl. The thought made her sick with fear.

The only place to go was out. So she reached outward.

Dizziness and disarray shook her when she tried to form. She couldn't seem to pull her form together quite right. The first time she had formed was nothing like this. It had felt natural and she had no awareness that without a form she was trapped in the vast confines of her gem. Now that she knew better, the entire prospect was terrifying. What if she reformed incorrectly? With all of the confusion surrounding her, Pearl suddenly saw countless ways she might mess up her form. The shame of such a thing would be too great for her to handle.

No, she decided, she had to reform with the utmost care. Even the smallest mistake would be a disaster, proof that she was the defective Pearl she feared she was. With the utmost care, PB began piecing herself back together particle by particle.


	7. Every Little Thing

PB didn't reform that solar week or the one after. Eventually Jasper had to return to her duties without her Pearl, and that meant delving through PB's records on her own. PB's work was so thorough and precise that Jasper had to do little more than to draw the obvious conclusions and present the data to her superiors in a report. After the disaster at the moratorium she was quickly pulled from the investigation into the missing gems and she was eager to distance herself from the assignment as much as possible. There was little headway left to make in that investigation as it was.

Once the report was submitted, Jasper was reassigned to a new company for training. This was where she belonged – preparing for battle alongside her fellow soldiers, not pushing investigative reports through the chain of command. It was a relief to have the structure of the army around her again. During the war, the army was the only stable thing she knew and she fell back into it like a drop of water in the ocean.

Or she tried to, at any rate. The quartzes of Yellow Diamond's army regarded her with a wary deference at best and belittling pity at worst. Their whispers followed her everywhere: throughout drills, through combat training, into her recreation time, all the way back to her quarters.

 _"…pretty incredible that a Beta made it this far…_

 _"…must be lonely living alone, but I wouldn't want to bunk with it…"_

 _"…even gave her a Pearl! Can you imagine…"_

It crushed Jasper to see how quickly other gems lost their admiration for her once she was among them. If there was some defect ingrained in her being then her fellow soldiers must have seen it. But she hadn't been purged. Jasper clung to that with a fierce desperation. If she was still here, it was because she deserved it. Beta gems were subpar, almost universally unsuited for a Diamond's army. Except for Jasper.

She knew she was exceptional, not just among Betas either. She had worked with enough Homeworld gems to know that in most cases she could crush anyone who challenged her. With that certainty in mind, Jasper threw herself headfirst into her training. She picked up the drills and the peacetime hierarchy quickly and soon stood out unapologetically as the top performer in her platoon. Yellow's Agates were quick to notice and quicker to make her into an example.

"You're going to let a Beta outdo you, you pathetic clods?" Plume Agate screeched at the entire company every chance she got. "Disgraceful! I'm ashamed to be your Agate if you can't keep up with an Earth gem. You are in Yellow Diamond's army! Show some lustre!"

The other soldiers in her company may have resented Jasper for the abuse but her success was Homeworld's success. It wasn't her fault that she was a better soldier than most. She was happy to lead by example.

The intensity of her training kept her mind off of her situation with PB as well. At least, until she returned exhausted to her empty quarters where there was no sign of PB regenerating any time soon. After the second solar week Jasper hid PB's gem in a drawer in her trophy room just so she wouldn't have to look at it. Still, the emptiness of her private rooms gnawed at her, echoing with what she'd done and every other failure she could remember. The emptiness drove her out into public – either to train during her free time or to run herself through any fighting ring she could elbow her way into.

Even then, reminders of her missing Pearl cropped up when she least wanted them. A particularly plucky Aventurine sidled up to her after drills one day and nudged her slyly before asking "Hey Beta, why don't you bring that Pearl of yours around? We wanna see what all the fuss is about." Nearby a group of soldiers snickered among themselves and Jasper bristled involuntarily.

"Because I'm here to work for Homeworld's future," Jasper said sharply, "just like we all are. Or did you forget?" The Aventurine shrank from her with a dirty look and slunk back to the group of soldiers with her shoulders slumped. The group closed with backs to Jasper, leaving her to wonder at the sudden pang in her chest.

The pang wouldn't be banished by the abuse of her training and when they were released and the rest of her company returned to their barracks, where every soldier's cubby was shoved into one communal hall, Jasper couldn't bring herself to return to her quarters alone. Instead she went again to the arena to watch other soldiers pit themselves against each other for honor and glory. Strangely, she felt no desire to join the fights herself and settled for watching from the edges of the crowd. For the moment it was enough to analyze the gems in the ring, learning their favorite techniques and noticing their missteps before they were even aware of them.

It was a good distraction until she noticed a few pearls standing primly together at the edge of her vision with their hands over their mouths as they whispered to each other. Fragments of their conversation reached Jasper.

"There's the Beta," one of the pearls said, "So where's her Pearl? She really should know better." The pearl trailed off when she caught Jasper looking over at her, her face paling quickly. The pearls with her shied back quickly to distance themselves from their fellow. Jasper moved from the edge of the ring to stand over the group who all stood only as high as her chest. A bunch of papery accessories talking about her like she wasn't standing mere feet from them.

"You should know to stay out of gems' business," Jasper scowled. The offending pearl ducked her head and fixed her gaze on the ground. She stammered an apology but Jasper cut her off. "Your gem wouldn't be happy to hear about this," she threatened and the pearl's head snapped up. The look on her face was pure terror. Behind her, the other two pearls stood close together with their eye fixed too determinedly on a screen above the ring showing the fight going on below, pretending not to hear the trouble their fellow pearl was in. The pearl before Jasper started to apologize profusely, but even the satisfaction of shutting the little gossip up couldn't rid Jasper of the feeling of constantly being singled out. Even buried in a crowd she couldn't keep from being noticed and judged.

The pearl was still stammering when Jasper rolled her eyes dismissively and walked away, leaving the pearl to stumble backwards into the arms of her sister servants with her chest heaving.

There was no getting away from being an outsider so Jasper returned to her quarters to sit with her guilt instead. The place was as cold and empty as she had left it. She pulled out the drawer holding PB's gem, no longer feeling any sort of hope or anticipation. There was no change, just as she had come to expect. Leaving the gem where it was, she stomped away with a huff and came to the far wall of her trophy room with hands clenched into fists.

The weight of expectation, isolation, and guilt suffocated her. Jasper shook as she felt her resolve threatening to crumble beneath her. Disgraceful, that's what she was. In desperate anger, she clenched her jaw and threw her fist into the wall with a wordless roar of frustration. The room shook with the force of the punch and in the stillness that followed Jasper pressed her head against the cool stone of the wall to be submerged by the ghosts following her.

If she could count on anything it was the constant feeling of being haunted by her failures. That stuck with her no matter what.

She let herself fall into silence, let herself be consumed by it so wholly that she only barely noticed the glow of light growing and taking shape behind her.


	8. Coalesce

The pieces came together one by one until finally the last piece slid into place and she was whole again. The glow of her own satisfaction illuminated PB's gem from the inside and reached outward, her light following the imperative to take form. Solid ground rose up to meet her feet and her form, too, solidified in Jasper's trophy room, mere feet from where Jasper had plunged a blade through her gut. It looked the same, as if only a few moments had passed. Maybe a couple minutes at the most. Even Jasper herself still stood nearby, head pressed against a wall.

PB went cold when she saw her gem. She still had no clue what she had done to provoke the quartz soldier and now that she was reformed she found herself trembling in fear at the prospect of facing Jasper. A good two meters separated the two gems and PB hoped that would be enough space to protect her.

"J-Jasper?"

Jasper turned slowly at the sound of her voice and it was immediately apparent from the look on her face that PB had been absent for far, far longer than a few minutes. There was a moment of strange silence between them as Jasper took in her presence in disbelief. Then she straightened and PB shrank back.

"I'm sorry, my Jasper," she said meekly. Jasper pulled back at her apology, her eyes full of what PB could only describe as reproach.

For a moment Jasper didn't speak. In fact, it seemed almost as if she couldn't speak. Her jaw clenched uncomfortably and she said, "It's been almost a full cycle." Whatever emotion was in her voice—be it anger or pain—PB couldn't parse it. The news itself was a shock. A cycle was an absurdly long time, particularly for a Pearl to be absent from her duties. Shame and mortification gripped her.

"That's…How is that possible?" PB's voice shook and she took a few steps backwards. She looked around herself for some sign of the passage of time but Jasper's trophy room may as well have been fixed in time. Nearly every detail was as it had been before PB dissipated.

Everything except the weariness settled into Jasper's features.

"What have you even been _doing_ in there?" Jasper demanded, ignoring her question.

"Putting myself back together. Trying to come back!" PB pleaded. Her Jasper seemed uneased by that for reasons that PB couldn't guess at. To cut her losses and to hide her sudden fearful tears, PB knelt before her gem. "Forgive me, I had no idea. Really, I came back as quickly as I could."

The tension in Jasper's body tightened when PB knelt and the quartz soldier put her hands up uncertainly and cringed. "Alright, alright, get up. Get _up_." There was a plea and a sternness etched onto her face that made PB clamber to her feet with more speed than grace. The pearl's face was red with embarrassment. It seemed everything she did was an offense to her gem.

"Yes, my Jasper," she intoned meekly. Then in a small voice she dared to ask, "What… my Jasper, what did I _do_?" Jasper pulled back from her again at the question and PB recoiled into herself with a violent jerk, her face paling. A pearl shouldn't have to ask such a question, she knew that, but here she was. While she was in her gem she had considered a thousand different reasons that Jasper might have attacked her but each was more troubling than the last. She needed to know for sure so she could serve her gem better. Even if Jasper's answer only confirmed that she had interrupted some sacred meditation. "I mean no disrespect! Please just… please tell me what I did wrong so I don't do it again," she begged. "I only wish to please you."

Jasper's expression, though clearly uneasy, was inscrutable. An uncomfortably long moment passed between them in which Jasper's gaze remained fixed on Pearl with such unbearable intensity that she thought she might dissipate once again. Finally Jasper sighed and spoke.

"You startled me."

Stunned into silence, PB only blinked at her.

When she saw PB's confusion Jasper stood tense, as she did when addressed by her own betters. The change was remarkable and frightening for a pearl who knew that Jasper only behaved like this before her agates. It was the stance of an underling in trouble and PB's mind tied itself into countless knots trying to understand why Jasper – her confident and commanding Jasper – suddenly acted like an inept pearl.

"I forgot where I was," Jasper admitted finally, deflating as if in defeat.

"…I don't understand."

The quartz soldier grimaced and tightened her hands into fists, encouraging PB to take yet another step back. "I _forgot_ where I _was_ ," Jasper said through clenched teeth. "For a moment I was on Earth. You caught me there, it was reflex when I…" The rest of the sentence died in Jasper's throat and a glassiness came to her eye.

PB feared she might be slipping away again. "My Jasper," she squeaked and inched forward, keeping an eye on Jasper's muscular hands. Even without a weapon those hands were deadly. Her gem's gaze refocused and fixed on her and PB hesitated some before asking, "Will you tell me about it? I want to understand."

Jasper's lip curled and her usual personality seemed to resurface. "How could you understand?" The rest of Jasper's thought was clear even if she didn't vocalize it: _You're a pearl, not a quartz, this comprehension is beyond you._ But even knowing that, PB ached to see into this part of Jasper, even if it would only give her a superficial knowledge.

"I… I can't, forgive me," she stammered. "You stabbed me, I just want to understand." Too bold a request for a pearl, PB knew that and she cringed in anticipation of her rebuke.

Instead Jasper balked and the same nervous guilt and humiliation reappeared on her face. "…Fine," she said gruffly, "But only because this can't happen again. Got it?"

Utterly surprised, PB nodded her head obediently. She fumbled in a moment of panic to remember how a pearl should behave. "Certainly, my Jasper. Why don't you rest and I'll—I'll tend to you while you tell me."

After some huffing and scowling from Jasper, PB got her settled in the cubby meant for her to recline and recharge. It was more spacious than most cubbies PB had seen, though Jasper's bulk easily filled it. Rather than sit inside, Jasper took a seat beneath it and rested her back against the cool stone wall. PB perched in the cubby above her and pulled a comb with wide teeth from inside her gem.

Silently, PB dragged the comb through Jasper's mane of white hair. Because she was made of the light of her gem Jasper's hair obviously didn't need to be detangled. But somewhere down the line she had discovered how soothing it could be to have somebody play with her hair and it was one of the few physical pleasures she confided to her pearl.

Jasper relaxed as PB worked with the comb and eventually she sighed heavily and said, "Rebel gems attacked my kindergarten just before I emerged. I woke up in the middle of a massacre."

PB listened in quiet horror to the story of how her Jasper barely escaped from the Crystal Gems' forces with a handful of her sisters from Earth's Beta kindergarten and given no time to recover before getting thrown back into the war. The quartz soldier recounted frothing battlefields and catastrophic ambushes, long nights comforting their wounded in secret and the urgency with which living with one eye over her shoulder became her only hope for survival, the threat of death that encroached on every step she took on that miserable colony – and all of it ultimately for nothing. It was a wonder her gem wasn't dark and clouded after a millennia or more of such toil.

By the time Jasper finished, helpless tears were rolling down PB's cheeks and her chin quivered as she combed the quartz's hair. She couldn't fathom the depths of peril her Jasper had endured during the war but now she could see the disjointed pieces of Jasper's personality fitting together. The attack that dissipated her made sense.

"It's still part of you, right?" PB asked gently, "You're still living like that?" She abandoned the comb and ran her fingers through Jasper's hair instead, drawing them lightly across her scalp. Her gut ached again when she thought about how quickly Jasper returned to leaning on her survival skills. Already her mind was racing for ways to head those instincts off in the future.

Jasper sighed in a way that made her seem tired, almost vulnerable. She nodded her head in answer before leaning back against PB's lap. "I wasn't trying to hurt you."

It almost sounded like an apology.


	9. No Instruction

In the days following her reformation, PB found herself acting contrary to everything she had been instructed to do as a pearl just to better serve Jasper.

 _Be unobtrusive._

When she had to be in close quarters with Jasper, she made sure Jasper never forgot where she was. Whether by staying within Jasper's line of sight as much as possible and occasionally locking eyes with the quartz to be sure she wasn't terribly lost in thought or by knocking before joining Jasper in a room, PB drew more attention to herself than a pearl deserved. Jasper's senses were always keyed into the space around her and beyond anyway; every noise and rustle of motion pinged something on her mental radar. The least PB felt she could do was make it easy for Jasper to know when those pings were merely her pearl.

 _Be silent._

Jasper avoided silence the way she avoided inactivity. As far as PB could tell it crept into Jasper's core and agitated her, causing her to imagine sounds or become nervous. Of course, some noises did the same thing to her so PB had to tread with caution when keeping silence at bay. She took to humming. While she worked, while tending to Jasper, any time it didn't get her a scathing look from her gem.

All of it helped. Jasper stayed calmer for the most part – not that anyone but PB would know. These things seemed only to crop up when they were alone. Even so, PB found her new habits bleeding into her behavior in public. She hummed a marching tune as she brought Jasper a report meant for her agate and only realized she was doing it when the agate snapped that pearls ought to be seen and not heard. Another time she looked up from the floor and locked eyes with the same agate for a terrifying moment.

"Your pearl is awfully bold to be meeting the gaze of her betters," Plume Agate told Jasper as she stared PB down with a withering glare.

PB felt frozen in place and like her chest was collapsing in on itself. Beside her, Jasper stiffened at the criticism but rather than turn to chastise her pearl, she gave a half shrug and told the agate, "How else am I supposed to know she's listening?" Plume Agate scowled at the both of them in disgust but it seemed she couldn't find fault with Jasper's answer because she didn't mention it again. PB could have fallen to the ground and sobbed with nerves and relief. Her knees were shaking violently. She had never been more grateful to Jasper.

When they returned to Jasper's quarters following that incident PB spent hours combing Jasper's hair and then massaging her hands and feet while Jasper recounted war stories. It was the only way she knew how to thank her gem for defending her misstep. Every day her lack of skills felt more obvious and limiting and PB knew it was time for her to improve.

She didn't have to wait long for an opportunity. Jasper frequented Homeworld's arenas which meant that PB frequented them as well. A buzz followed Jasper where ever she went but the next time they made their way between the pits where gems bashed against each other to the chime of heavy applause an unfamiliar undercurrent of chatter drew PB's attention.

A couple of pearls pressed together at the edge of the crowd whispered to each other behind their hands with their eyes fixed not on Jasper but on PB. One was the pearl who had greeted her after Jasper's honors ceremony who PB had since learned was known as Mags – because she was a Magnetite's pearl. When Mags saw that PB had seen them she gestured for PB to join them. The attention made her face grow hot and the thought of leaving Jasper's side to brave the crowd sent a jolt of terror from her gem down to her toes. Still, Mags was insistent and the other pearl was nodding along with her so PB gave them a curt nod. Once Jasper found a fight to join she would be preoccupied for hours anyway.

PB followed Jasper from pit to pit with her head high, the red capelet fluttering around her shoulders. Jasper finally stopped and watched one of the open fights for a few rounds before queuing up to join. Ever an attentive pearl, PB waited through the first round to be sure that Jasper was staying put for some time. And she was.

PB was all but forgotten.

Carefully she crept to the back of the crowd that was suddenly thronging to see the Earth Quartz in action. Standing separate from all of the spectators was Mags and the other pearl, a severe, green tinged gem with flecks of blue and gold freckling her cheeks and known by other pearls as Jey, and they waved PB over urgently.

As soon as she was close enough, Mags grabbed the edge of her capelet to examine the subtle changes in the hemming. "I knew it!" she declared. "You reformed. What happened?" Jey watched her from over Mags' shoulder with a creased brow and pursed lips.

All of the eyes on her, even just the eyes of fellow pearls, made PB tremble with anxiety. "It...was an accident," she admitted and looked away.

Mags put an arm around PB's shoulder and tutted, "It always is."

Somehow PB got the impression that Mags didn't quite believe her but before she could decide whether correcting her would shame Jasper, Jey piped up, "Think of it as a learning experience." PB's stomach twisted into knots at the advice that Jey clearly thought was helpful.

"Sure, sure," Mags said and brushed Jey off. "But you're back! And Jasper seems…placated?" At the moment she said that, Jasper could be heard hollering at her opponent from across the arena and PB recoiled from the sound. Mags cringed at that and reached out a comforting hand for her.

Embarrassed and red-faced, PB shied from the touch and smoothed her hair and capelet to compose herself. Her skittishness was an embarrassment to her gem. "Jasper's great!" she insisted with too much eagerness. "She's all shine now, it's actually getting _easier_." Mags and Jey exchanged a dubious look. "Really, I just feel my skills are...lacking. I'd like to do more for her."

Jey gasped and her face lit up. Beside her, Mags pulled away cautiously. PB did the same – everything she had heard about Jey made the freckled pearl sound like a beacon for trouble.

"You ought to learn music! Learn an instrument!" Jey burst out before Mags could say anything.

"Why, that's actually a splendid idea, Jey..." Mags beamed, clearly pleasantly surprised. She pulled PB in close and confided to her, "Jey's gem oversees Blue Diamond's orchestras. She's a talented musician in her own right."

Jey nodded proudly, puffing out her chest. "I could teach you right now."

" _Right_ now?" she asked dubiously. Surely an impromptu music lesson in the arena would create an unseemly disturbance.

"Absolutely," Jey assured her and threw her arm over PB's other shoulder, nearly making PB's knees buckle from the weight of both pearls. She held up her hand and from the gem on her chest she projected a series of images onto her palm–musical scores and notes and a variety of wild instruments. "You've got an ear for music don't you? I've never met a pearl without it." PB shrugged noncommittally. Satisfied with that, Jey conjured the image of a gem with a stringed instrument tucked under her chin. PB could tell the music it produced was airy and delicate—she could almost hear the soft notes in the air. It wasn't the sort of music that jumped to mind when she thought of Jasper.

"Violins are the height of sophistication," Jey told her but stopped when she saw the skepticism painted on PB's face. "...What? It's not too complicated for you, is it?"

"No, no," PB assured her. "It's just… bigger would have a more robust sound, right?" Mags and Jey agreed that it would. "So...does it come bigger?"

It did. Jey showed her three other versions of the same instrument. The largest of the group would have dwarfed PB dramatically. In truth, it looked nearly as broad as Jasper herself though not as tall. Jey called it a contrabass and PB's eyes lit up as soon as she saw it.

"It's perfect," she breathed.

" _That_ one?" Jey balked.

"I think it would be the most fitting, yes," PB insisted.

Jey looked up at Mags and then shrugged and closed her hand. The hologram she had projected disappeared into a cloud of sparkling light and then was gone. After a moment of thought she said, "I _do_ like a challenge… How long will your Jasper be preoccupied?"

"She—she could be down there for hours," PB told her nervously. "Why—?"

"Excellent!" Jey squeaked before she could finish her question and yanked PB toward the arena's warp pad. Mags waved quietly before turning away as if none-the-wiser as they disappeared into the crowd. "Mags'll cover for us, let's do this quick."

"What are we _doing_?" PB hissed as she tripped over her feet to keep up with Jey. They were lucky that no one turned around to catch two pearls dashing from one end of the arena to the other, though the possibility made PB feel faint.

"My Jade is in a private meeting that should carry on for a while," Jey explained as they set foot on the wide warp pad.. "We're getting you a contrabass."


	10. Make It Effortless

The resonate chime of the warp pad faded and its wall of light dropped so PB could see where Jey had brought them. She hung on the other pearl's arm, clinging as if her existence depended on it. And it very well might.

"Where are we?" she breathed, "Are we allowed to be here?"

Jey put a finger thoughtfully to her pursed lips and then patted PB's hand. " _Us_? Right this moment? ...No. So just follow my lead." She ushered PB off of the warp pad and down a corridor with a confidence that PB could scarcely believe.

The floor was entirely deep blue crystal and the walls on either side of them were lined with thick marble columns and engraved with murals depicting sprawling orchestras and dancing gems. PB gaped up at the towering artworks and nearly stumbled. Music floated down the hall from all directions, all of it gloomy and in a minor key.

"Blue Diamond's music workshops are here," Jey explained. "All of the music you hear in Blue Diamond's court began right within these walls. Instruments are stored this way."

"So… we're stealing one?" PB did not like the idea of that at all and when Jey flashed her a sly smile that confirmed her fears she very nearly collapsed. The thought of Jasper knowing what she was doing made her gut churn. "Isn't there a, um, legitimate way to get one?"

"What, like commission one?" Jey scoffed. "For a quartz soldier? Oh, the very notion would wound my Jade. No, this is the best way."

PB opened her mouth to say something only for Jey to shush her and yank her around a corner into an offshoot corridor and then another until she found the door she was looking for. "Just be quiet and follow my lead," Jey told her sternly and opened the door. They slipped inside what was essentially a closet filled with cubbies that were filled with all manner of strange instruments in pristine condition.

Jey went immediately to a heavy cabinet and threw it open to reveal several of the large contrabasses she had shown PB back at the arena. PB swallowed hard. The instruments were massive, so much moreso in person, and had a shining finish. They stood just a bit taller than PB and with her arms outstretched she wouldn't be able to close her arms around it. PB felt suddenly intimidated.

"Oh stardust," she fretted, "How will we carry it? Will I even be able to play it?"

"Of course you will," Jey insisted. "You can do whatever is required of you." From a hook in the cabinet she took a long flat device strung with something organic and called it a bow. "Put this away first and then we can move the contrabass."

PB faltered. "Put it away where?"

"In your gem, where else?" Jey drawled but when she saw PB's dumbstruck expression she reeled back. "You can store things in your gem," she told PB and then asked incredulously, "You don't make that Jasper _carry_ all her things, do you?"

"I- No one told me!"

"Oy..." Jey groaned. "Oookay. Okay. Focus your light in your gem until you can feel it open up. Like this." She closed her eyes and hummed. Her gem glowed until it seemed to lose its shape. Jey touched her gem and her fingers sank into the light before retracting them and pulling a compact, circular screen from inside her gem and held it up with a haughty look. "Got it?"

With mouth agape and feeling quite embarrassed, PB nodded. It was such a simple thing that she felt stupid for not knowing on her own. She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. All of her focus went to the gem in the middle of her face.

Jey waited for a moment before huffing and speaking up again. "You're not doing anything. Imagine it opening."

PB shrank back, doubly embarrassed now, but she took another breath and did as Jey said. Her gem tingled almost painfully for a moment. PB grasped at the feeling and pushed through until her gem opened with a ray of golden light. The sensation surprised her so much that she jerked back with a gasp. Her gem snapped shut immediately and the golden glow dissipated.

In the dim that remained, Jey's lips pursed tight in frustration. "You _had_ it, do it again," she pressed. "We're wasting time."

PB nodded and scrunched her face to open her gem again and this time she managed to hold it open with a severe amount of concentration as she stowed the bow inside. Just as the last of the bow disappeared into light and PB was wondering how she'd manage to get it out again, a whoosh of air came from the door.

Both pearls snapped their heads around to see who had caught them. Jey's face was shockingly calm when PB herself felt frozen with fear. She couldn't even dim the light of her gem and it forced the brightly blue dioptase that had opened the door to squint into the room.

"Um, what… are you doing in here?" the dioptase asked, her small voice pitched with alarm at seeing two pearls raiding the instrument storage.

Jey puffed herself up before the dioptase could say or do anything else and put a hand on her hip with an air of command. "Ugh, finally!" she exclaimed and grabbed the contrabass by the neck, her fingers tender on the wood. "Someone shows up to help! Well? Get in here."

A pang of fear shot through PB. Jey had to be mad or malfunctioning to speak to another gem in such a way. The dioptase looked equally as stunned until Jey snapped at her again. "My Jade has been waiting long enough for us to fetch this instrument," she said sharply and for a moment even PB believed her. "Help us stow it, or are you going to tell her you stood in our way yourself?"

Somehow that worked. The dioptase jumped to attention at the mention of a Jade and tripped over herself to help Jey lift the contrabass. "Of course, certainly," she blubbered. Jey rolled her eyes at PB behind the dioptase's back and motioned for her to bend so her gem was at a more reasonable height.

PB bowed deep at the waist. She had only a moment to wonder how something as large as the great contrabass would fit past the border of her gem before the whole instrument disappeared before her eyes. She straightened up and resisted the urge to feel her gem with her hands as if a cursory investigation could explain how the storage worked.

Beside her, Jey smoothed her hair and addressed the nervous dioptase with a tight smile. "Very good, I shan't make mention of how you held us up," she said and marched briskly to the door with a wave to PB. The dioptase nodded dumbly and thanked them meekly as they left her to her own business. Jey didn't say another word and PB followed suit until several hallways stood between them and where they had left the dioptase.

"...Jey?" she began and waited for the other pearl to give a look to go on. "How'd you know that would _work_? I thought for sure that we were in trouble."

Jey snorted. "Oh, PB, you're still so rough," she laughed. "Pearls are made to serve our gems. No one's going to see you as your own gem, you're an extension of the gem you were made for. And if your gem presides over others, you carry some of that authority with you."

"That doesn't seem correct…"

"Well, it is. And it only works if you act with conviction," Jey shrugged. "No gem is going to question your doings if it seems like something your gem might have you do. That's what you're _for_ , after all."

It seemed foolish and risky to put her gem on the anvil like that but PB recalled how a few unconcerned words from Jasper were enough to silence an agate's complaints about her. Maybe Jey's strategy of deception had some merit after all. Even so, PB could think of no practical use for such bold lies.

Jey stopped so suddenly that PB, still weighing Jey's advice, stumbled into her and received a stern rebuke in return.

"Pay attention," Jey hissed and opened the door to a small practice room.

"Wait, aren't we going back?" PB asked when Jey grabbed her arm and ushered her into the room.

"You have to learn to play first, remember?" Jey insisted and sealed the door behind them.

* * *

The cheers of the thronging gems echoed all around Jasper as she slammed the citrine into the stone. A few more seconds and the other gem yielded just like the four challengers before her had. Jasper, breath heaving but still grinning and full of fight, postured and roared for the crowd as her opponent crawled out of the pit.

The spectators gathered around the edges of the pit were far more diverse than when Jasper had joined the fighting. No longer just a gathering of soldiers, half a dozen aristocratic gems hung at the railing with their mouths hidden behind fans and their bright eyes fixed on the action. Jasper quickly recovered from the surprise of seeing gems so far her betters at the rails and flashed the luminous gems a wicked quartz grin. That sent the whole group of them reeling with astonished gasps and laughter, unable to look at Jasper any longer. She chuckled to herself and continued her slow turn around the pit.

That is, until she locked eyes with an unfamiliar agate wearing a great, flared pauldron and Yellow Diamond's insignia. The agate's lip curled in what could have been a smile and beckoned to Jasper. Her chest tightened but she didn't dare ignore the command. With a final bow to the crowd, Jasper excused herself and climbed out of the pit toward the agate.

The agate clasped her hand as she reached the top and pulled her out effortlessly amidst the gems on either side pressing close to thump Jasper on the back and congratulate her on her victories. Two more gems took her place in the pit but many of the spectators began to disperse once it was clear Jasper was leaving. It was in the shuffle of gems leaving the pit's railing that PB appeared again with a flushed face and disheveled hair – presumably from being jostled to the back of such a large crowd. Her eyes were wide with characteristic nervousness as she fell into step behind Jasper and the agate and patted her hair back into place. Jasper didn't have a chance to pay her more mind than that.

"That was very impressive," the agate was saying as she led Jasper away from the pit. She carried herself with an effortless air of command that any gem would have recognized even without her polished armor and insignia. Jasper found herself straightening her own back to match the agate's posture. "Your little sparring matches are starting to draw a lot of attention," the agate went on, and Jasper could not have prepared herself for what she said next.

"How would you like to fight in a more… formal… setting?"


End file.
